php string parsing to array

Assuming neither the constants nor the values have space in them, this will work for the given example :

$str = '(CONST1 value1 X.CONST2 value2 CONST3 (\VALUE3) X...)';
preg_match('/\((\S+)\s+(\S+)\s+.*?\.(\S+)\s+(\S+)\s+(\S+)\s+\(\\\\(\S+)\)/', $str, $m);
$arr = array();
for($i=1; $i<count($m);$i+=2) {
  $arr[$m[$i]] = $m[$i+1];
}
print_r($arr);

output:

Array
(
    [CONST1] => value1
    [CONST2] => value2
    [CONST3] => VALUE3
)

explanation

\(          : an open parenthesis
(\S+)       : 1rst group, CONST1, all chars that are not spaces
\s+         : 1 or more spaces
(\S+)       : 2nd group, value1
\s+.*?\.    : some spaces plus any chars plus a dot
(\S+)       : 3rd group, CONST2
\s+         : 1 or more spaces
(\S+)       : 4th group, value2
\s+         : 1 or more spaces
(\S+)       : 5th group, CONST3
\s+         : 1 or more spaces
\(          : an open parenthesis
\\\\        : backslash
(\S+)       : 6th group, VALUE3
\)          : a closing parenthesis

You want to use preg_match to first grab the matches and then put them into an array. This will give you what you are looking for:

$str = '- 10 TEST (FOO 3 TEST.BAR 213 BAZ (\HELLO) TEST';

preg_match('/FOO (\d+).+BAR (\d+).+BAZ \(\\\\(\w+)\)/i', $str, $match);

$array = array(
    'FOO' => $match[1],
    'BAR' => $match[2],
    'BAZ' => $match[3]
);

print_r($array);

This is assuming though that the first two values are numbers and the last is word characters.

preg_match is your friend :)